Good Job! I worked for Teavana a few years ago and I can see from your post that nothing....nothing has changed. Andy and Nancy have NO people skills. Teavanas turnover rate must be huge. I feel blessed that I got out of there when I did. Good luck to you!
btw: SpecialTeas.com is the same product for much less...including the shipping price..

I agree. Nancy was the one who trained me (on one of her "hiring sprees") and this was when our store first opened. Since then, I have seen two managers, three assistant managers, and everyone that I've really ever worked with come and go. Most people would not stay longer than a month and even that was considered a long time. They lead me around with my health insurance, my manager would not take responsibility as a manager and instead blamed me for all the problems. I was told everything I did was wrong, even if I did it as I was shown. I was yelled at and insulted, I was threatened with my job even with a doctor's note. I was told to come in even if I was sick, and then had to lie to the customers as to why I sounded so bad. If I didn't lie, I got yelled at even more. Talking to the DM? It did nothing. She didn't care that we had to hire new people. I was told that I called in with very short notice even though I called in a day before my scheduled shift and the handbook says four hours.
I'm naturally not a pushy person, kind of a doormat sometimes. I was told how to sell and I was not to deviate from this. I was stuck standing up in one place for hours sampling and yelled at if I had to go to the bathroom. We had to drag customers in (after standing outside the store for hours) and pressure them to buy things that my manager wanted them to buy. They wanted a cup? We had to sell them two ounces. They wanted two ounces? Make it a half a pound. We had to sell pounds of overpriced tea and lie about what it did for you, making people think that all their problems would go away.

I went into the local Teavana. I was happy with the products I purchased, but not so much with the service. The salesman had never heard of a gaiwan. As I explained it to him, he still had no idea what I was talking about. Finally, I found one and pointed it out to him. His response was that he knew it by another name As you explained, he tried to sell the lb of tea to my friend (which was ridiculously priced) and spent a good three minutes explaining the positives of purchasing a tin to hold it.

However, I am very happy with the gaiwan I purchased! I will admit that I am rather new to loose tea, so I cannot speak for the relative quality of the item. However, I've never spilled a drop with it and with practice I am getting to the point where I can keep almost all of the leaves out of the cup. Though the art on it (a kingfisher peering under a branch) is obviously mass produce, it is still aesthetically pleasing

Hey there earthprince! Not to sound creepy, but I know the exact store you worked at! When I went to that Teavana I got a bad vibe from it, and was astounded at the pricing and demanding sales attitude which was overbearing. I don't need a pound of tea right now, lol

Glad that you shared the story! Makes me appreciate this place much more!
~CutieAgouti

As a current (but hopefully not too much longer) employee of Teavana, I support other former employees and will back up 100% what they have to say about their negative experiences for the company. I don't want to make this seem like a Teavana-bashing thread, but the first poster's experience is fairly accurate to what it is really like - I even had the same trainers. The only difference really with my story is that the GM was a mall hopper (managed several other mall stores- most of which don't exist anymore) and hired all of his friends and former employees to Team Lead positions. I was promoted immediately to Team Lead by the trainers and since have suffered because I am not part of that mall clique that is my other coworkers (4 out of 7 employees previously knew each other from other mall jobs).

I find that those who defend Teavana (employees or managers) typically buy into whatever they are told without hesitation. I have read information about teas and such that directly contradict what Teavana tells you to say. I also find that they do not care about employee concerns. I was even written up for shrinking out a bag of tea as damaged (Silver Needle) that was torn open and on the floor of our back room for weeks. I was told that I lost the company $300 in profit by treating a stale and contaminated tea as damaged. A coworker also recently found a large beetle in one of the tea tins from which we scoop out samples and customer tea.

While I do enjoy some of the teas and products Teavana offers, I have made the decision that once I am officially gone from the company, that I will no longer purchase my teas from there and switch to Adagio instead. I will also discourage others from Teavana and I will be sending in a letter to their corporate office about my own experiences (which I haven't touched on in the slightest). Even out of my other "low end" retail jobs, I have never been so abused by a company or my coworkers as I have been with Teavana- and the kicker is that they DON'T care. The turn-over rate is high.

To me, the solution is fairly simple- the company does not need to deliberately lie about the products to make the sale.. especially from what I've seen on these boards- the demand is there. I do not believe in sacrificing my integrity for a little bit of job security- especially since the pay is meager and the hours are even less. If Teavana wants to turn things around then they need to actually make the effort with their employees and try to keep who they have instead of threatening them every day about their numbers. In my store, people who don't make $200 in a shift will get written up. If they don't make an A or A+ grade for their sales 2 weeks in a row, they get written up. They will never make the Forbes list of Top 100 Places to Work.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that although my experience with the company has been atrocious, I still have my love of tea. (and I wanna see them go down).. haha

"According to the Wilderness Medical Society, water temperatures above 160° F (70° C) kill all pathogens within 30 minutes and above 185° F (85° C) within a few minutes. So in the time it takes for the water to reach the boiling point (212° F or 100° C) from 160° F (70° C), all pathogens will be killed, even at high altitude."

But for all practical purposes, unless you're quaffing water from a hydrothermal source, boiling water for making tea renders it essentially pathogen free.

I wonder if there isn't a very good historical correlation between the love of black tea in the West and its requirement for vigorously boiling water for brewing. It decontaminated the water. Tea has been shown to boost immune defense against pathogens.

Intuit wrote:I wonder if there isn't a very good historical correlation between the love of black tea in the West and its requirement for vigorously boiling water for brewing. It decontaminated the water. Tea has been shown to boost immune defense against pathogens.

Well, maybe. Don't forget that the Chinese have been boiling water to clean it for a long time too, and they drink much more than black tea. I would wager that the historical preference for black/red tea in the West has more to do with its longer shelf (boat) life.

Anyway, this is getting pretty OT, so I'll share my most recent Teavana experience. It wasn't in a store though; someone named Leah Barber (the "Affiliate Program Manager" for Teavana) recently contacted a few bloggers, including myself, asking for some sort of partnership. She even offered "access to a ton of banner ads and links that you can place on your website." Woo hoo!

I doubt they would be so interested had they bothered to search my blog for the word "Teavana"; every single mention of that store has been negative, and in one post I promised never to shop there again after I read the OP of this very thread!

I had a horrible experience with that corporate trainer N***Y! She is a pathological control freak. She acts like her s**t doesn't stink, and has a' know it all' attitude about everything. She talked down to me the entire time I was training there and I only stayed one day. If I stopped to blow my nose, after sweating my arse off putting their dumb store together, she would yell at me to stop standing there. I wanted to hit her upside her head!!